


The Fine Art of Bonsai Cultivation

by Innsmouth



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beforus, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 07:41:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innsmouth/pseuds/Innsmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beforan sociologists have determined that the midblood known as Kanaya Maryam is in need of culling from wrigglerhood onwards. Culling to proceed immediately, for the glory of the Empress and the safety and comfort of the culled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fine Art of Bonsai Cultivation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vintar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vintar/gifts).



Tailoring has never been difficult for Kanaya; needles and thread have been her constant companions for sweeps, long before her custodians decided that she was to be formally trained in her field. Landscaping was far too dangerous for one not even on the cold end of the hemospectrum, regardless of the hue and rarity of her blood. The risk of a lowblood arm being mangled by a spinning chainblade is too great to assign anyone under blue to prune the topiaries.  
  
There are nights when Kanaya misses her wriggling days, when she was able to creep out in the late afternoon and pretend that the shaggy privet hedges were her jungle and she their queen, empress among the pungent green-stink of broken vegetation and the scuffs in the dirt left by hopbeasts. The estate had been a desert long ago. Terraforming had flattened the dunes and crumpled the spires of wind-turned stone, and now it stands orderly and neat, manicured into some semblance of propriety in the middle of the blowing sands.  
  
Kanaya does not see much of this, however. Kanaya is kept inside, in a safe, secluded room where she can have space to work on her crafts. Needle in, needle out. Cut thread. Tie. Needle in, needle out. Button. Repeat.  
  
A violetblood, ever solicitous, comes in around the second planetary quarter-rotation with a tray of food and an array of questions. How is she doing? Are her quarters comfortable? Does she require a red or pale interlude? Kanaya gently demurs to all of his inquiries, though not without a trace of irritation. Her annoyance shows clearly enough to be caught by the seadweller, and he purses his thin lips. “Kanaya,” he says, in a calm, patient voice, “we cannot help you if you refuse to tell the truth.”  
  
“I want to go outside,” she says. The violetblood’s fins flatten, but she gets her way. A contingent of securititans, in light armor and concealed weaponry, assemble outside her cloister the following morning to guide her through the gardens. Kanaya is most careful to not break away from her followers or seem to do as such; that would be taken as an escape attempt, and she would be restrained for proper culling.  
  
Her walk around the grounds of the estate is far too brief for her liking. There is so much that she has yet to see; the labyrinth, the East Beforan garden, the topiary squid with tentacles proudly splayed out over the grounds. Her time is up. She is gently shunted back towards the main hive, but before her escort can object she has dug a bulb out of one of the flowerbeds to cup in her blunt-clawed hands. “May I have a pot for this?”  
  
“Kanaya,” says her caretaker in gentle admonishment, “Kanaya, it will die if you take it. Put it back.”  
  
“That’s why I’m requesting a pot in which to place it, so it doesn’t fall victim to a trend and expire.” Her eyes when she locks them with his are subtly challenging, rebellion lurking just beneath cool complacency. She knows perfectly well that she is pushing the limits of her culling, and that she may have to endure hours of gentle attitude adjustment.  
  
“Get me a pot,” she says, “and I’ll finish the embroidery on the Myrond piece in two nights.”  
  
The seadweller hesitates; Kanaya never sees a single caegar of the profits from the sale of her work. She is assured that it all goes toward her care and comfort, but doubt has been creeping in of late. “You shouldn’t push yourself too hard, Kanaya,” he says. “Little pieces at a time. We’ll see what we can do.”  
  
She puts the bulb in a shallow dish of water in the sun in lieu of soil, and dribbles a few bits of purloined plant food into its bowl. After dawdling on extremely basic stitches, the violetblood comes by to gently scold her, and she takes the opportunity to haggle for a pot. This time, she wins, and pin-pricked and stiff-fingered, she delicately transfers the bulb into the small clay vessel. As she smooths soil over a nub of vegetation, she idly wonders if it will wither and fail to thrive here in her small tower room.  
  
Her pessimism is staunchly defied a few days later, when she spies green shoots poking up through the soil. An odd emotion swirls behind Kanaya’s ribcage and sends tendrils up the front of her throat; pride, perhaps, or joy. She crumbles more plant food into the pot and resumes her stitchwork with a frenzy. True to her word, the Myrond piece does get done in two days, and her seadwelling handler showers her with smiles and praise. What a good girl she is, how skilled, how dedicated. She’ll be a master seamstress in no time, right?  
  
He smiles. No one laughs. Jadebloods do not get to be masters. Jadebloods are genetically predisposed to serve, and willingly so. They are gentle giants, meant to be herded to small things.  
  
The compliments go in one of Kanaya’s floppy ears and out the other; her thoughts are dedicated solely towards the straggly little plant on her windowsill.  
  
Sometimes she stands next to it, clawtip gently brushing one of its tender green shoots, and looks out over the narrow view of the estate that her window affords her. If she wakes early enough, she can catch the sun as it slides beneath the horizon and the wights come out in the last of its rays.  
  
The decline is subtle, at least at the beginning. A limp leaf here, a sad lack of luster there. Nothing worth concern, says her caretaker. She does not believe him. Her plant, the thing that she had cared for and brought into the world by herself, is dying.  
  
It’s blackly funny, if she thinks about it. Both of them are confined to be carefully cultivated for their own ostensible safety.  
  
Her fury grows by the night.  
  
It is her caretaker who sets her off; she cannot remember how. One patronizing comment too many, one lordly assurance that he knows best how to help her, perhaps.  
  
Her claws are clipped too closely to rip and tear, so she rams her enormous heavy-knuckled fist into his face. A securititan approaches, arms raised to subdue her in a crushing bearhug. Her horns are too small and stunted to lock with his, so she twists the hooked one into his eye. Screaming, he lets go, and she bolts for the front door, pot tucked under one arm. The double doors rear up in front of her like frightened hoofbeasts, and she shoulder-checks herself right through.  
  
The open air is warm and filled with the calls of birds perched in the palm trees, and it fills Kanaya’s respiratory sacs like heady smoke as she runs. A flash of white catches her eye, and she screeches to a stop-and-half-lunge. The chainsaw feels right in her hand as she continues to run, long legs eating up the distance away from her pursuers. But exhaustion begins to wear on her after a while; for all her long limbs and powerful frame, she has been kept caged too long to be as fearsome as she could.  
  
Kanaya kneels, scraping a shallow depression in the sandy soil at the edge of the estate. With utmost delicacy, she lovingly unpots her blooming bulb and sets it in the small pit. A brush of sand-speckled dirt covers it over to hide amongst its fellows.  
  
  
  
  
With one last backward glance, she stands and yanks the chainsaw to roaring life as she prepares to face those who would cage her again.

**Author's Note:**

> This is...not quite what you had in mind, I'm sure. I apologize for that and the length.
> 
> Regardless, I hope that you enjoyed it.


End file.
